You are aware that our great difficulty with these gentlemen is to keep them from usury- an object to accomplish which our fathers have been at particular pains; for they hold this vice in such abhorrence that Escobar declares 'it is heresy to say that usury is no sin';and Father Bauny has filled several pages of his Summary of Sins with the pains and penalties due to usurers.He declares them 'infamous during their life, and unworthy of sepulture after their death.'""O dear! " cried I, "I had no idea he was so severe.""He can be severe enough when there is occasion for it," said the monk; "but then this learned casuist, having observed that some are allured into usury merely from the love of gain, remarks in the same place that 'he would confer no small obligation on society, who, while he guarded it against the evil effects of usury, and of the sin which gives birth to it, would suggest a method by which one's money might secure as large, if not a larger profit, in some honest and lawful employment than he could derive from usurious dealings.""Undoubtedly, father, there would be no more usurers after that.""Accordingly," continued he, "our casuist has suggested 'a general method for all sorts of persons- gentlemen, presidents, councillors,' &c.; and a very simple process it is, consisting only in the use of certain words which must be pronounced by the person in the act of lending his money; after which he may take his interest for it without fear of being a usurer, which he certainly would be on any other plan.""And pray what may those mysterious words be, father?""I will give you them exactly in his own words," said the father; "for he has written his Summary in French, you know, 'that it may be understood by everybody,' as he says in the preface: 'The person from whom the loan is asked must answer, then, in this manner: I have got no money to lend, I have got a little, however, to lay out for an honest and lawful profit.If you are anxious to have the sum you mention in order to make something of it by your industry, dividing the profit and loss between us, I may perhaps be able to accommodate you.But now I think of it, as it may be a matter of difficulty to agree about the profit, if you will secure me a certain portion of it, and give me so much for my principal, so that it incur no risk, we may come to terms much sooner, and you shall touch the cash immediately.' Is not that an easy plan for gaining money without sin? And has not Father Bauny good reason for concluding with these words: 'Such, in my opinion, is an excellent plan by which a great many people, who now provoke the just indignation of God by their usuries, extortions, and illicit bargains, might save themselves, in the way of making good, honest, and legitimate profits'?""O sir!" I exclaimed, "what potent words these must be!
Doubtless they must possess some latent virtue to chase away the demon of usury which I know nothing of, for, in my poor judgement, Ialways thought that that vice consisted in recovering more money that what was lent.""You know little about it indeed," he replied."Usury, according to our fathers, consists in little more than the intention of taking the interest as usurious.Escobar, accordingly, shows you how you may avoid usury by a simple shift of the intention.'It would be downright usury,' says he 'to take interest from the borrower, if we should exact it as due in point of justice; but if only exacted as due in point of gratitude, it is not usury.Again, it is not lawful to have directly the intention of profiting by the money lent; but to claim it through the medium of the benevolence of the borrower-media benevolentia- is not usury.' These are subtle methods; but, to my mind, the best of them all (for we have a great choice of them)is that of the Mohatra bargain."
"The Mohatra, father!"
"You are not acquainted with it, I see," returned he."The name is the only strange thing about it.Escobar will explain it to you:
'The Mohatra bargain is effected by the needy person purchasing some goods at a high price and on credit, in order to sell them over again, at the same time and to the same merchant, for ready money and at a cheap rate.' This is what we call the Mohatra- a sort of bargain, you perceive, by which a person receives a certain sum of ready money by becoming bound to pay more.""But, sir, I really think nobody but Escobar has employed such a term as that; is it to be found in any other book?""How little you do know of what is going on, to be sure!" cried the father."Why, the last work on theological morality, printed at Paris this very year, speaks of the Mohatra, and learnedly, too.It is called Epilogus Summarum, and is an abridgment of all the summaries of divinity- extracted from Suarez, Sanchez, Lessius, Fagundez, Hurtado, and other celebrated casuists, as the title bears.There you will find it said, on p.54, that 'the Mohatra bargain takes place when a man who has occasion for twenty pistoles purchases from a merchant goods to the amount of thirty pistoles, payable within a year, and sells them back to him on the spot for twenty pistoles ready money.' This shows you that the Mohatra is not such an unheard-of term as you supposed.""But, father, is that sort of bargain lawful?""Escobar," replied he, "tells us in the same place that there are laws which prohibit it under very severe penalties.""It is useless, then, I suppose?"
